To my lovely friends and followers – I’ve started managing a new Facebook page for a great cause. The page promotes the charity project “Red Ink”, who publish annual volumes documenting real women’s life stories. 2014’s volume included my story as life as an expat in Vietnam for 2 years.

All proceeds of these books go to the charity Hope for Justice, a charity dedicated to ending human trafficking all over the world.

Please do go to the Facebook page to like, share and spread the word – go on, it just takes one wee click of your mouse 🙂

I know I promised a scintillating post on sewing and tapestry in Ho Chi Minh City, and I know I’m even late in posting that, but something much more exciting and interesting has reared its head. I’m sure you’ll understand when you see that:

I’m ruddy famous!!!!

Yonks and yonks ago, after returning to the UK, I offered to write a brief review of my time in Vietnam for my local newspaper and they’ve only gone and published it! It’s been put both online and in the local newspaper, but as I’m a little delayed in updating my blog, only the online version is available now. But still, look at me go!

I’ve been a little incognito on here for the past month or so now and as a result, I feel I’ve let my friends down, my family down, my loyal WordPress fans down and (even worse!) myself down…

Actually, I don’t feel that bad, but man I’ve missed writing.

So, the short version of the 1000 page novel that has been my life over the past 3 months is:

I left Vietnam (boooo!) It wasn’t a decision made lightly and had been in the offing for a while, but the time had come for me to return to my friends and family in England. The beautiful Cheshire countryside just didn’t have that same appeal to it without me there apparently … I left Vietnam at the beginning of December (allowing time for a bit of travel before Christmas) and arrived back into Heathrow at dusk on 22nd December (how romantic…)

The events that have happened since have been somewhat of a whirlwind, catching up with friends and family, celebrating both the calendar and lunar New Years and then embarking on a short internship to keep my CV ticking over nicely. But you don’t really want to hear about all that. And, to be honest, I don’t really want to write about all that.

I originally started this blog as a means of recording memories of my time in Vietnam and I’m going to continue it along these same lines. I still have bundles of stories from my 2 years living in Ho Chi Minh City that I’m dying to share with you all and I only hope that some of them may actually prove as useful to anyone who’s thinking of doing a similar thing and expatriating to Vietnam, or any of the countries in South East Asia.

I also like to think of it as a way of keeping in touch with all those friends I’ve met (both directly and interactively) along the way.

So, I’m going to say a short farewell now, but I’ll be back tomorrow with one hell of a riveting tale about sewing and tapestry in Ho Chi Minh City (I can just feel your bubbling excitement at the prospect…)

Happy Tết Holiday to all my Vietnamese friends, students & colleagues and to all my other friends from the Asian continent a very Happy Lunar Year to you all!

I’m gutted not to be in Vietnam to celebrate this year, so to all my friends out there, please send me photos and updates of your celebrations. I miss you!To mark the occasion from here in the UK though, here are a few of the photos I took during the Sài Gòn celebrations last year, enjoy!

For anyone who is in the UK, more specifically in Cheshire, for the 2014 Lunar New Year – head to the streets of Chester at 9.30am tomorrow (Saturday 1st February) for a Chinese parade full of dragons, cat walks and traditional musical performances – it promises to be a spectacular day out. Organised by Wah Lei, a non-profit Chinese Association: http://wahlei.org/